


Turkey Tribulations

by WorryinglyInnocent



Series: Lab Nights [7]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Aunt Elvira - Freeform, Everyone's favourite interfering elderly relative, F/M, Festive fic, Ficlet, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: It wouldn’t be Christmas without a Lab Nights fic and everyone’s favourite interfering elderly relative, Aunt Elvira.Emma and Bae are hosting Christmas for the first time, and it’s not going exactly to plan. This takes place two years after part 6, and 10 years after the fic that started it all.
Relationships: Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan
Series: Lab Nights [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/604144
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	Turkey Tribulations

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone's wondering, I am keeping tabs on ages. Aunt Elvira is 85 as of this fic and still going strong. :-)

“This is a disaster!”

“It really isn’t.”

“It is! They’re arriving in ten minutes and the stuffing’s burning and the potatoes are still raw and the turkey’s going backwards!”

“Emma, calm down, everything’s going to be fine, I promise.”

“It’s not! This is terrible!”

Bae grabbed Emma’s wildly flailing arms before she could knock the pan of carrots off the stove.

“Em, please just breathe. It’s just Christmas dinner. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I know, but…”

“No buts.”

“But it’s not going to be as good as Aunt Elvira’s!”

There it was, the entire reason why Emma was having a mini nervous breakdown at the prospect of burnt stuffing and raw potatoes.

It was the first time that Bae and Emma were hosting Christmas lunch, and Emma had been in a complete tizz about it for the entire day, to the point of entering meltdown mode now with Gold, Belle and Rosie about to arrive.

She sighed; she really hadn’t wanted to admit to Bae what was bothering her. She’d gone through her entire life not really caring too much what everyone thought of her, and now she was here, fretting about not having Christmas dinner to the perfect standard that she’d always had it at Bae’s house. Why was she even that worried? It made no sense!

“Aunt Elvira isn’t coming,” Bae said, trying to mollify her and failing miserably. “She’s on a Christmas Markets tour with her Knit and Natter group. She’s in Lübeck right now.”

“That doesn’t make it any better! You’ve all been used to Aunt Elvira’s amazing Christmas dinners since forever and now I’ve come along and ruined Christmas forever.”

“You haven’t, because I was the one in charge of the roast potatoes so it’s a joint effort at ruination.”

“Bae, you’re not helping!”

“Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood. Honestly, Em, it’s going to be fine.”

Emma let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping. “Why did we agree to do this?”

“Because we’re Christmasochists.” In spite of herself, Emma laughed. “Because we thought that doing Christmas was the ultimate test of adulthood? I don’t know. Still, we’re in it together, and the car’s just pulled up so I’m going to go and waylay them and then I’ll come back and we’ll make a plan for rescuing this turkey.”

Bae kissed her forehead and left the kitchen, and Emma leaned back against the cabinets, sinking down onto the floor with a groan. She knew that attempting to cook Christmas dinner in their tiny kitchen in their tiny flat was a bad idea. They should have waited until they were in a bigger place, but neither of them were exactly raking it in at the moment and she had no idea when that would be. She didn’t want to live her entire life in a state of ‘we’ll do it when there’s enough money/space/time’ because the way things were going, there never would be, and then she’d have missed out on all of life’s experiences.

Perhaps this was one she wouldn’t have minded missing out on.

In the living room beyond, she could hear Bae welcoming his parents and little sister, and getting them settled with drinks and things. At least the table was already laid so it looked like they were ready to host, even if the food was an entirely different story.

For a moment, Emma found herself wishing that Aunt Elvira had come after all and hadn’t taken advantage of not being designated caterer to go on holiday. Not that Emma begrudged her the holiday; Aunt Elvira had cooked Christmas dinner in the Gold household every year for the past thirty years, aside from the year she fell down the stairs and dislocated her collarbone on Christmas morning.

But if Aunt Elvira had come, then Emma would be able to ask her for cooking tips.

She grabbed her phone and stared at it for a long time. When Aunt Elvira had adopted her into the family, she’d given Emma her phone number, saying that she could always call if she needed a mad old woman’s advice at any time.

It was Christmas Day and Aunt Elvira was probably eating her own Christmas lunch at a very nice hotel in northern Germany, but it was a culinary emergency, and until Emma had met Bae and his family, she’d never been in a position whereby she had someone she could call on when she was at the end of her tether.

She dialled Aunt Elvira.

The phone rang for a very long time, and Emma was beginning to give up hope, before a familiar Scottish voice answered.

_“Hello, Elvira Gold speaking. Sorry, I couldn’t find the phone in my knitting bag and then it got tangled up in the crochet pot plant holder. In fact it’s still tangled up in the crochet pot plant holder, I look like a right wally with all this pink wool stuck to my ear.”_

“Hello, Aunt Elvira. Merry Christmas. It’s Emma.”

_“Emma! How are you? Merry Christmas! It’s lovely to hear from you. How’s Christmas dinner going?”_

“Well, that’s actually the reason I called you. It’s, well, not going. Nothing looks like it’s cooking and the roast potatoes just won’t roast.”

_“All right, let’s see what we can do to salvage this then. I’m sure everything will be fine. Where’s that errant nephew of mine? Either of them. Actually, both of them. The secret to a great Christmas dinner is delegation. All hands on deck now!”_

Emma called Bae into the kitchen, and put Aunt Elvira on speakerphone as she handed out sage advice. It was clear that the other women in the Knit and Natter group were also getting in on the action, and Emma wondered how many sweaters and crochet plant pot holders she and Bae were going to get next year.

Finally, the meal was coming along nicely, with all disasters recovered. And, as Emma looked around at the pots and pans, she reflected they hadn’t really been all that disastrous.

“Thank you, Aunt Elvira.”

_“Think nothing of it, my dear. It was a team effort, after all. I’m sure that it will taste wonderful, and remember that even if it doesn’t, it’s really not the turkey that everyone’s going to remember. It’s the day itself.”_

Although Emma was really not the hugging type, she was definitely going to hug Aunt Elvira when she saw her at Hogmanay. 


End file.
